Troublemaking Clients – How to Spot, Prevent, and Resolve Situations

When you work as a freelancer, occasionally you will come across clients that cause you problems, it’s inevitable. As the saying goes, “you can’t please everybody”, this rings very true when you deal with a high volume of clients.

Whether it’s clients that refuse to pay; explain how they want something then request a large number of revisions; speak argumentatively; or simply client’s that are impossible to get hold of; we’ll find out how to deal with them. This article covers how to spot these types of clients, how to prevent a situation from escalating and finally what to do when a situation does escalate.

Related posts:

• How to Build a Better Design Experience
• How to Design for Your Target Audience
• Effective Ways to Start a Freelance Graphic Design Business
• How Designers should Read Clients
• Significant Skills Every Web Designer Should Know
• Making Sense of Clients’ Inputs

 

Spot

When you’re freelancing, turning away a client seems counter-intuitive however this certainly isn’t the case with some clients, the added stress of handling these clients and also the excessive time you’ll have to spend with them makes it better to reject their projects. Very few of your clients will present a problem and will be a pleasure to work with but don’t kid yourself into thinking all clients are like this.

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Detailed below are a number of ways to spot a client that more than likely will pose a problem.

The Know-It-All Client:

Spotting this client is easy – They ‘know’ everything and have to let you know they know everything.  They may ask you how you’ll do something and then suggest you do it another way. Ask yourself, “Who’s the expert here? If he knows how to do it, why doesn’t he do it himself?”. This is more of an amber flag, dealing with these clients is more effort than normal but not too much to blow a project for.

The Buy Now, Pay Later Client: “Can you do it now and I’ll pay you in ‘x’ days/weeks/months?” – Sound familiar? If this is the first job you’re doing for a client, run! Your chances of getting paid are slim. Maybe you should refer them to the credit crunch first though, banks won’t hand out credit so easily anymore and neither should you. If this is a client that you’ve known for a while and has always paid on time, the decision is different. Giving them the benefit of the doubt seems okay in that situation. Check this article How to Design for Your Target Audience.

The “Can You Show Me How To…” Client:

Does a magician give a way his secrets? If your client knows how to do something himself, what does he need you for? If you teach your client your techniques, it will be one short job.

The Negotiator Client:

This type of client always likes to lower the rate, no matter how fairly you’ve already quoted. Maybe they’ll tell you they can get someone cheaper on a certain site, well that’s good for them. Let them know how fairly you’ve already quoted and re-assure them of the quality of your work. If you lower your rate once, expect the same for any repeat business. Check Graphic Design – A Fair Price.

The Unreasonably Urgent Client:

Sometimes clients just don’t understand how long a project is going to take. As a result they provide you with ridiculously short deadlines that simply can’t be hit. You can tell them that it can’t be done yet nine times out of ten they’ll believe you’re slow!

The ‘Estimate Error’ Client:

If a client asks for an estimate yet is shocked when he hears it, you definitely have this type of client.  They can’t accept that your estimate is reasonable. Convincing them that you’re right for the job is still possible but be sure to expect more of the same throughout and ultimately a bad outcome.

We’ve learnt some of the signs that a client should be avoided; now it’s time to prevent problems from occurring. If you’ve already taken on a bad client, this is the section for you. Even if you have a good client, this is the section for you!

Prevent

Not all problem clients are detected so easily. Some clients prefer to wait until the end to throw some problems at you.

Those who’ve been in the industry a long time know the ways to both prevent these and also to protect yourself from the effects of these.

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The following list details a few of these methods.

Stepped payments:

You’ve put in over 100 hours on a project for a client who has been pleased with your work throughout, you reach the end and at last it’s payday. You speak to your client who then either develops a problem or simply doesn’t respond. All the while the xyz amount per hour you’ve worked out has suddenly changed to a big fat zero. You’re stuck! Stepping your payment however eliminates this. Asking a client to pay 100% upfront is unreasonable, 10% on the other hand is fine. This is your deposit. After you’ve done a good portion of work, you get paid another 25% and so on. At last, there’s no more doing 100% of the work and getting 0% of the pay. This is a well practiced technique in every industry, not just freelancing. Good buyers will understand this and pay you immediately. Check  Tips to Manage Your Freelance Payments

Communicate:

A client may tell you all along that everything is fine, inside however he’s not quite feeling the same. At the end his true feelings may come out and result in you not being paid or even worse, he’ll pay you but bad-mouth you as well. What’s more damaging? Not being paid once or being paid by one client and losing further clients because of the feedback you’ve received? All of this can be avoided! It’s human nature to be polite which makes clients too uncomfortable to raise an issue. You can be one of the people who says, “He never told me so I couldn’t do anything” or you can persistently check. Try asking a client the following, “Are you pleased with everything so far? I’m more than happy to go over things and make sure we have everything just right.” You might find the answer you get is slightly different to what it was before.

Explain:

If your client is being unreasonable, tell them! If they want you to work at unreasonable hours or on your day off, tell them that it’s an unreasonable demand. Make sure they are clear on your schedule. This is something that should be discussed during the interview stage yet better late than never.
If what they’re asking isn’t possible, tell them. More importantly, explain why and offer them alternative solutions. They’ll appreciate it a lot more than a ‘no’.

Extract:

Clients don’t always know how to describe what they want which leaves you in an awkward position. You’re left pulling ideas out of thin air hoping to please them while at the same time blowing your budget. The easiest way to avoid this is to ask them to send you some designs they like. At least at that point you have something to work from making your life a lot easier.

Resolve Situations

Okay, we know how to spot and prevent; now all we need to know is how to resolve. Resolution is the toughest part but hopefully by using the tips mentioned above, resolution won’t be necessary.

Some clients DO refuse to pay! They may tell you the cheques in the post but the best assumption is it will never come. What happens next? Some clients may even change any usernames/passwords to prevent you from accessing the work you’ve done for them as in the case of websites. If you followed the ‘Stepped payments’ procedure then this won’t be a huge problem however some people are already past that and this can be devastating. There isn’t a lot you can do in this predicament as bad as it sounds.

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The typical method for this would be:

• Stage 1: Be polite. At this stage people are already frustrated and this doesn’t get them anywhere. Send a calm email/letter checking in on them and tell them that the payment is now overdue. Give them a variety of payment methods to choose from and wait for a response.
• Stage 2: If there was no response to the first email/letter then it’s time for stage two.
• A phone call tends to be the most appropriate at this stage; it will have more of an impact than an email/letter. Tell them that the payment is long overdue, payment must be made within 7 days and until payment is made, ownership of the designs/content/(whatever work you did) belongs to you.
• Furthermore explain to them that action will be taken if the debt isn’t settled.
• Stage 3: Inform the client that you WILL be taking action. It’s advised that you protect yourself with any work provided by allowing yourself to somehow render the work useless in situations like this. If it is a website, leave yourself a way to disable it.
• Stage 4: If the client hasn’t paid by this point, further action needs to be taken. Get a solicitor involved. Nothing makes clients ears perk up more than a well-worded letter from a solicitor. That payment is more than likely guaranteed to shoot into your bank account.

 

Related posts:

• How to Build a Better Design Experience
• How to Design for Your Target Audience
• Effective Ways to Start a Freelance Graphic Design Business
• How Designers should Read Clients
• Significant Skills Every Web Designer Should Know
• Making Sense of Clients’ Inputs